Martin Handford is the illustrator and creator of those Waldo books that you used to lay on the floor and stare at until you had the texture of the carpet tattooed onto your elbows. He just put this illustration (below) into one of his books. Do you recognize it? If not, you don’t know who Melanie Coles is, and you somehow didn’t hear about her amazing art project: Where On Earth Is Waldo?

The project is so fabulous it is entitled to two images before the “more” button (amazing, I know). Melanie’s graduate project was to turn Google maps into a giant page from a Where’s Waldo book. She and her cohorts painted a giant Waldo and placed it on the top of an unknown building in Vancouver and waited for it to be photographed by Google’s satellite.

I wasn’t going to post about this project because it happened way before I even launched Booooooom but the recent Martin Handford development (yesterday) pushed me over the edge as I have been a fan of his since childhood.

And honestly, when a project this cool happens right here in my hometown AND it is the brainchild of a fellow Emily Carr graduate (I graduated from the art school two years ago) how could I not post about it?

Here’s a few photos of her putting together her Waldo for those of you who somehow didn’t hear about this a couple months ago:

That’s just genius, I know there are a few things like this including a KFC advert, I wonder how big a thing this is going to be and if people will start to sell large flat spaces as advertising space? Maybe I should set up a broker website and do it myself?!?! I can taste the money already!!!

I heard of this, but never saw the pictures. I think its awesome that they got recognition in Handford’s book. Here in the UK, we call him “Where’s Wally” and I only recently discovered that in the US, he is Waldo

A selection of images from “God’s Alive” by photographer Justin Guthrie. Shot in Alaska and New Mexico, the series is inspired by a song written by Leonard Cohen and sung by Buffy St. Marie. More below.